


how to reverse engineer emotional constipation

by guide_to_the_galaxy



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: Brotherhood, Brotherly Love, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Light Angst, hugs donnie n raph tightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2019-12-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21648988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/guide_to_the_galaxy/pseuds/guide_to_the_galaxy
Summary: Donnie doesn't let himself cry often, and Raph thinks that's gotta change.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 220





	how to reverse engineer emotional constipation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fevertw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fevertw/gifts).



> a commission for my pal jackie!! i totally can't get enough of writing donnie and raph's dynamic especially in rise! so, here's a lil more of that!

There’s a point in Donatello’s life where he decides he really doesn’t like crying in front of his family. He’s almost sure no one really does, figures it’s all a part of getting older; then Mikey openly sobs in the middle of dinner because he _really tried to get a recipe right and I can tell none of you actually liked it._ **  
**

And Raph cries to a good movie and Leo cries because he can’t shut down and it’s almost five in the morning and he doesn’t know why he can’t just shut down. He does it comfortably, like it’s natural. 

So maybe Donnie is just different. Maybe his desire to not be seen that vulnerable is weird and that makes him feel inexplicably worse. He’s already so…and then _this_ would just be…

It would be another thing to set him apart, and Donnie doesn’t mind the variety that is his family, but some things he’d at least like for them to be similar in- and openness was a concept the rest of his family possessed so unabashedly. 

And maybe, Donnie thinks, it just has to do with the way they all looked at him, from the time he could remember, when he broke down- over minor little things anyone else could sort out. They’d look at him like he was on the verge of breaking indefinitely. Treated him like he was glass days afterwards. It was burdensome and humiliating at best.

So Donnie doesn’t cry. Not openly. 

Because being a little bit more different than his family he can absolutely live with, being a liability he cannot. 

It gets easier when he hits thirteen. His emotional blocks come across as mature or something and so that’s fine. Of course, Donnie hopes he is mature, but he also knows that making the decision to not feel- outwardly- isn’t the reason. If anything it’s the crushing realization that eventually he _has_ to mature- because it’s only the five of them (not counting april) and people want them dead, and Pops is older than he lets on sometimes. 

Still, no one actually questions it, the shift in Donnie’s character, though his brothers pry and ask if he’s okay after some shit blows up in his face, hesitant with grimaces like he’ll blow up too. 

And then Donnie doesn’t blow up, not in a way he used to when he would get all teary-eyed and so _angry._ Comedic melodrama, he figures, suffices enough. 

* * *

The shell thing. Disability really isn’t it. Donnie likes to believe he can do average, everyday shit just like the rest of _anybody._ And probably extraordinarily better than a human could. He can take on more, he’s almost sure of that. 

And maybe if they were just regular, and didn’t get into fights every other night- maybe Donnie would be _fine_. 

His memories of childhood and bad falls tell him otherwise, though, and Donnie is faced with the reality that his genetic makeup is just really shitty and it’s a thing he’ll have to live with. 

He’s got his battle shell and many more things to see to it that he’ll never actually be behind; but physicality aside, Donnie can’t help but _always_ feel behind. 

If he’s in the lab perfecting his shit, he misses things, gets out of the loop with his brothers, and if he sacrifices time, in their next battle they might not be lucky, and Donnie’s working out his balance. 

It just…doesn’t come easy. Either way he feels inadequate to some degrees. He keeps this to himself, of course, because if he overshares it’ll fuck things up and his brothers will get the sense that maybe he is weaker- that he should slow down. 

Still, it doesn’t take long for Donnie to hate his decision to bridle himself, because he takes a few good hits and his legs feel sorta numb and he’s tired and his purple jacket is literally in pieces, probably still in that alley in the Bronx. 

He hopes it may be put to some better use in its next life, but for now he mourns it- and his few days or so of _belonging._ Donnie convinces himself hourly that he needs no validation or companionship outside of what he has already with his family. But then again…

“Uh, yeah, I’m okay,” he lies, twisting the kinks out his neck, avoiding Raph’s searching eyes, “Should’ve foreseen the possibility of three unusually welcoming individuals having evil ulterior motives.” 

He’s not lying now, because he _should have been smarter._ Should’ve known no one would just…want him, and not his tech. 

“It ain’t your fault,” Raph says, shrugging, the concern never leaving him even for a moment, “But you should let Leo take a look at-”

“I’m good,” Donnie says, maybe too quickly, too stiff.

Raph purses his lips like he wants to say something else, and if he does want to, Donnie is grateful his brother decides against it, patting his shoulder before heading out.

And Donnie bites his tongue so he doesn’t wince at the touch, or at the throbbing it leaves behind.

* * *

Donnie lets himself cry openly, genuinely, in a busted up turtle tank with only his father and Mikey as witnesses. It feels like relief he’s never felt, and he wonders, distantly, why he’s deprived himself of this for so long. 

* * *

Donnie was nine when he mastered playing off injuries. He’d just tighten up his face a little and dig his nails into the palm of his hand or his thigh or something to keep himself distracted. It’s a surefire way of making sure he’s inconspicuous and it almost always works out fine- but then he brings everything he’s got to the fight and still fucking loses. Not in a way that he can shake off and get right back up from; his tech is destroyed and his mind feels foggy and distant the longer he stares at the shredded remains of his battle shell. 

When they get to home, safe and warm and desperately missed, Donnie lets Leo do most of the patching up, and slips into his lab with all the broken pieces of what was like _life_ to him. He put _everything_ into his work, so maybe he’s not so selfish to think he’s taken the biggest loss here, but Donnie feels stupid anyway. 

He stays in one place, on his knees, for a long, long time. Too tired to move or maybe just in shock, he doesn’t really care to decipher. Donnie only knows that when he breathes it feels like inhaling glass and when his body moves, slightly, his nerves are like fire. He should rest, all logic tells Donnie this. 

And when the doors to his lab open, and Raph’s shadow casts along the floor, Donnie knows he should _really rest_ \- because it’s fact that Raph would make sure of it anyway and Don isn’t in the exact mood to fight. 

In the moments it takes Raph to cross the lab, to where Donnie kneels, Donnie thinks of many things he can say- callously or dismissively- to make his brother _leave._

But Raph stands above him and after he hesitates, kneels right alongside with Donnie, silent and controlled. His presence carries no weight, and if anything, it soothes. 

And maybe they’re getting older now, because Raph doesn’t even _have_ to speak. He just turns his eyes to Donnie and something heavy breaks.

“It wasn’t enough…” Donnie croaks, and tries to clear away the ache in his voice, “All my tech…” 

Raph’s eyes get softer, if that was even possible, as he looks from the pile of broken equipment and back to Donnie. 

“I tried,” Dee continues on because if it’s bubbling out now he might as well expel everything, “Didn’t even leave a dent.” 

“You tried, man,” Raph responds, his voice gentle but not pitying, thank god, “That’s all that counts. What makes you strong ain’t about if you…can’t do it, it’s if you’re willing to get up and try anyway, y’know?”

Donnie stops, mentally at least, and his eyes widen just a bit at that. He knows Raph struggles with his words in a different way than Donnie himself does- he doesn’t always know how to phrase shit, but it’s there, the sentiment and love and it washes over Donnie, settles him.

Steadies him.

The tears come slowly, not overfull like with Pops, a little more reluctant. And Raph is quiet again, just letting Donnie ride this out for as long as he wants. It’s a golden thing, what they have. Donnie wouldn’t trade it, and neither would Raph- even if he wishes desperately that things were different, that their situation was better. 

They may not be able to change that, and that doesn’t exactly matter.

What matters is _this._ Is the closeness of two brothers with doubts and fears and hearts eager to protect one another. Donnie cries a little more and it’s fine. It’s the best feeling he’s had all day. 

**Author's Note:**

> hope yall enjoyed this one! and if you can, could you check out my other fics? this writer loves feedback and you guys <3


End file.
